Meet the Department: Adrian Kavanagh

[This is the latest in this series of posts by staff and students in the Dept of Geography…]

What do you most enjoy doing in the Department?
The spreadsheets, so many spreadsheet…oh God I love those spreadsheets… Er, I mean working alongside our eager and hard-working Geography students and a very talented group of colleagues in the Geography Department 😮

What book are you currently reading?
Conor O’Clery’s Moscow, December 25 1991. I’ve been reading a number of sports biographies also over the past few weeks, including a number of Olympics-related biographies such as those of Victoria Pendleton, Jessica Ennis and Bradley Wiggins as well as the biography of Paul Merson (former Arsenal great – Come on you Gooooners!!!).

What TV show are you watching?
Not watching too much TV at the moment (especially now that a certain annual event is over for another year…) but do check in latest sports happenings on various sports-related programmes and channels.

What music are you currently listening to?
With this year’s Eurovision Song Contest only after finishing little more than a week ago, a number of this year’s Eurovision tunes are still among the list of most listened to songs on my iPod… BTW, the songs from Malta and Hungary are NOT on this list 😡

Do you have a hidden talent?
I can bore an entire room into a deep sleep with my raft of elections-related or Eurovision-related statistics in the space of just 1.24 seconds…

What one object would you bring to a desert island?
Food. Lots of it… (What else would you bring???) Er, would the rules allow you to also bring a tin-opener by the way???

If you could change one thing in NUI Maynooth, what would it be?
Develop a computer programme to ensure that all Third Year students (and all staff!) read the emails sent from the offices (er I mean office) of the Third Year Tsar. (I also wouldn’t mind having a cafe somewhere in the vicinity of Rhetoric House. Oh yeah, and also the introduction of slow-walking and fast-walking lanes around the campus, so I don’t get held up in full stride between Rhetoric and Hume/Arts/Iontas by a gaggle of students walking at a speed of 0.004km/hr…)

What’s the worst job you’ve had?
Footing turf on the bog down in Laois. Back-breaking stuff… Though the post-footing tae and sandwiches on the bog usually did hit the spot 🙂

Soapbox or Pet Peeves
This doesn’t really apply as people who know me will tell you that I am a calm and reflective sort, who never loses the cool…

Oh, who am I kidding, I have a list of pet peeves so long that it would stretch from Borris in Ossory to Luggacurren…including:

People talking loudly into their mobile phones on trains – am I misunderstanding them, do they want everyone in the carriage to join in their conversation?

People who spell my name as “Adrain”. I am not a hole in the ground that waste-water can flow through, thank you very much… 😡 Grrrr…

Tottenham Hotspur

People who don’t read the emails of the Third Year Tsar and then ask questions that could have been answered if they’d only taken the time to read the flamin’ emails!!! Grrrrr Part Deux…

People who espouse opinions loudly without having any evidence to back up their arguments…

Wasps…hate ’em

Smarmyness (is that actually a word???)

When good spreadsheets go bad… 😮

Not enough coverage of GAA games involving the “smaller counties” on RTE, although I would not complain if they, er, accidentally overlooked the Laois v Louth game from earlier this year… 😮